CHAPTER 169: CHAPTER 169: BIRTH OF ZHONGYUAN

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, burning paper offerings in the traveling palace is forbidden.

But since both of Zhuixia’s parents had long passed away, Lady Lan, considering her diligent care, allowed her to leave the palace for the rites on this pretext.

Who knew she would go into labor today?

Everyone was dumbfounded.

"Your Majesty, use some strength, we can already see the child’s head. If you don’t exert more force, the child might suffocate."

The midwife with decades of experience could immediately see that Lady Lan did not want to give birth.

In this situation, how could she not give birth!

If it leads to hemorrhaging, wouldn’t she be jeopardizing her life right here?

Yet Lady Lan kept murmuring that she couldn’t give birth today.

The midwife was at a loss and called for Zhuai Yun and Zhuimeng.

Both palace maids had never had children; how could they make such decisions?

Anxious and flustered, they heard news from outside.

"The Emperor has arrived."

"Princess Consort Yi has arrived."

"Doctor Cheng has arrived."

This news was like finding a beacon for the two, and they promptly went out to explain the situation.

"Nonsense! The child has already come, does Lady Lan expect to push it back in?"

Princess Consort Yi loudly scolded, deliberately speaking for the Emperor to hear.

Then she ordered Doctor Cheng to quickly go in and assess the situation.

In the courtyard, the Emperor looked up at the sky, not saying a word.

Giving birth during Mid-Autumn wasn’t unprecedented.

But the outcomes for those children were often unfavorable.

Though he disliked Lady Lan, the child she carried was truly his offspring.

He couldn’t just dismiss it.

If possible, he hoped to delay it.

Even if it were born on the morning of the sixteenth, it would be good.

But alas, heaven didn’t fulfill wishes.

Soon after Doctor Cheng went in, the midwife shouted out.

"It’s not good, Your Majesty has fainted, and the child is stuck, it will suffocate!"

Being Lady Lan’s first delivery and on such a date, she was already unwilling in her heart.

Therefore, she didn’t really listen to the midwife’s advice.

When told to eat something, she refused.

When told to scream less and conserve energy, she didn’t listen.

Now, she fainted from exhausting herself, but what about the child?

Doctor Cheng immediately instructed the midwife.

"Cover the lady with a quilt, I’m coming in with needles!"

"Yes!"

Quickly the midwives had everything tightly covered, by the time Doctor Cheng came in.

He smelled thick blood and saw Lady Lan on the bed, exhausted and unconscious.

Without delay, he inserted the Golden Needle into her.

Lady Lan gasped sharply, awakening suddenly.

The midwife disregarded Lady Lan’s hesitation and immediately pressed on her abdomen.

This push forced Lady Lan to exert her strength too.

"Ah..."

With a long scream, the child was born.

The midwife’s joyful expression never emerged when she immediately noticed something wrong.

The child’s complexion was bluish-purple, a sign of suffocation.

Now born, it didn’t even make a cry; what to do?

She quickly slapped the child’s bottom a few times, seeing no response.

She then flicked the sole of the foot with some force, and only then did she hear the child mew like a kitten.

The midwife was relieved.

No matter what the future holds for this child, for now, its life was preserved.

She immediately began cleaning with another midwife.

Then she spoke to Lady Lan.

"Congratulations Your Majesty, it’s a little princess!"

What?

Princess!

The child she longed for day and night wasn’t a prince, but a princess!

Lady Lan, though weak, struggled to rise and gritted her teeth at the midwife!

"Say it again, what is it?"

The midwife knew well that most of the concubines in the harem preferred sons, but a princess was a princess; even if said thrice, it couldn’t change the situation.

So, she braced herself and said.

"Your Majesty, it is indeed a little princess."

And then she wrapped the cleaned child in a brocade robe and handed it to Lady Lan.

She stubbornly opened the brocade robe to take a look, instantly collapsing.

Already hanging by a thread, at this moment, even the will to live vanished.

Zhuimeng supported her collapsing body and immediately cried for the physician.

"Doctor Cheng, save Her Majesty, please!"

Doctor Cheng was soaked in sweat from anxiety.

He immediately began acupuncture.

The midwife hurriedly carried the child out.

In the courtyard, the Emperor and Princess Consort Yi, hearing the commotion, walked over immediately.

"Congratulations Your Majesty, Lady Lan has given birth to a little princess."

Princess?!

Instantly, the shoulders of Princess Consort Yi relaxed.

"A princess is good, thoughtful and adorable. After Lady Lan’s careful raising, she will surely be obedient and sensible!"

But being born in Mid-Autumn, on the fifteenth, and as a princess.

It seems the life of this princess might be...

These thoughts, Princess Consort Yi kept to herself, not daring to speak them aloud.

The Emperor glanced at the Second Princess in the midwife’s arms, frowning.

"Why isn’t she crying or making noise?"

The midwife panicked, stuttering without clarity.

This could not escape the Emperor’s eyes.

He frowned deeply and immediately asked.

"How is the princess’s health? Speak!"

The midwife, trembling, knelt and confessed.

"Lady Lan didn’t want the child born today, so she held back, but as she was in a rush delivery, at the crucial moment she fainted, and when she finally gave birth, the little princess suffered some suffocation. So... so the little princess is like this."

She was only a midwife, not a physician.

How could she determine if the child’s condition was congenital or caused postnatally?

So, she could only explain what she knew.

These words made the Emperor’s face grow even darker.

The child, who was fine, was delayed into such a state.

Lady Lan hadn’t been punished yet for the Second Prince incident; now her own child is the same.

How is she worthy?

So he immediately ordered.

"Take the wet nurse and the little princess to Zeping State, as for Lady Lan..."

"The lady is still hemorrhaging, I fear she..."

A woman’s hemorrhage leaves little chance of survival.

The Emperor was angry, but it wasn’t to the extent of wanting her life.

"Inform Doctor Cheng to do his utmost to save Lady Lan."

Saying this, he strode out of the courtyard briskly.

No sentiment was left here.

Princess Consort Yi didn’t care what the Emperor thought, only gazing at the slightly bluish face of the child within the brocade robe, seemingly recalling something, with a slight sorrow in her expression.